Amberwing
by Mister Quintessential
Summary: "A myth, is it?", he heartily chuckled. Rated K for slight violence and some language, and takes place a few years after Firewing. R/R, no flaming and con crit. only, please.
1. Cedric

_**A/N:**_

_First off, thanks for reading this little pamphlet. Second, this takes place somewhat after the events of Firewing, Shade still dead yet somewhat, quote-unquote 'alive'. Third, this was a project that spanned over a few years, and my writing was more structural and better than now, and if you read quite well, you may be able to notice a few differences between the first three chapters and the rest. I apologize for the length of the chapters, (Quoting Kenneth Oppel's official bio: "I wrote a long story which turned out to be a short novel") cause from the size that I was writing in (12 pt.) it seemed like I was writing at the approximate speed of Dan Brown on steroids. Also, the chapter numbers are a bit messed up. Sorry for that. I'll fix those later on! :)_

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_Prologue - Cedric_

Cedric woke up with a start. He had that dream again. Shaking it off, he swiveled his head across the hollow his unknown mother and father carved out. It was empty - as usual. He unfurled his wings and yawned a bit.

Letting his wings extend to their full length, (which halfway touched both walls of the roost) he took a moment's pause, and not a wingbeat later, he shot out of the squeeze that served as a gateway in and out of his home, winded his way across the somewhat cramped system of rooms and mini-nurseries and lookouts, narrowly avoided an upwards bound bat, and blasted out of the sugar maple's knothole.

Sure enough, there was everyone. A few newborns flew past, giggling and accusations of cheating following after. His father's friend (or so everyone said) Archer, was giving chase to a winged beetle. A few older newborns were diving from a high branch in one of the trees, waiting until the last possible moment and then pumping their sails out, using the momentum to skim across the ground. They were either trying to impress the females, or practicing for their first hibernation. Since his father wasn't here, he stayed with the females and was usually the only male broody during the hibernaculum retreat.

Cedric Silverwing was a bit too late, and everyone was done hunting for the most, and were just muttering or flying around. He looked upwards and saw the sky slowly transitioning from a dark blue into a jet black. The clouds were rolling from left to right, and angled his head to the tree canopy and surveyed his surroundings, which weren't that new. The hunting grounds hid the Silverwing colony from prying eyes, and the hunting grounds were a more lighter part of the expansive forest that they lived in.

Around the grounds were dense greenery, and to the immediate east was a strong and flowing river which owls frequented. A bit farther to the north were the smoldering remains of a used-to colony which everyone called 'Shade's Tree'. Cedric had no idea who Shade was nor why they had to name a dead tree after him, but still.

After milling around a bit and spitting dollops of sound here and there, he found a lone mosquito, beginning its sluggish retreat back into the dense of the green lands. Too late, he thought. After quietly stalking his quarrel for a bit, he lunged and caught it in his mouth. Mosquitos were generally avoided if you were a hunter. They did little to soothe your stomach, left a nasty aftertaste, and were mostly ubiquitous around forestry, but if he wanted to quell the growing hunger, he had to eat some of these ugly and tasteless things. The rest of his hunting hour went like this, boring, unappetizing, and boring.

Eventually, he finally found a delicious morsel he would surely enjoy - a tiger moth. Oh, how he loved tiger moths. The thrill of the hunt, the tangy taste and the oh-so satisfying crunch. Cedric gave chase, and the tiger moth knew instantly it was being chased. It was no use viewing the world through his echo filters, the tiger moth's own echoes left his vision an endless sea of silver ripples. Angling his sails downwards, exactly how Archer taught him, he skimmed the ground, and he could definitely feel the newborns eyes on him now. Smiling quietly to himself, he adjusted his speed until he was a bit behind the moth, and shot upwards, his mouth open. He caught the tiger moth, and crunched it down quickly.

He had heard funny stories about bats who had caught a tiger moth in their mouths, but due to their slow uptake on closing their mouths, the prey would escape.

But soon after Cedric noticed where he was heading - he was traveling too fast up, and despite all of his attempts to stop, he crashed into a thick, hanging branch of a tree and crumpled. But before his world went black, he felt the warm touch of life embrace him once more and then leave, being replaced by death's cold vice grip. Then, without fighting, he met death and did not smile nor frown, but accepted it freely - and closed his eyes for the final time.


	2. Celeste

_CHAPTER 1 - Celeste_

Celeste Silverwing was beautiful, as most males would say. She didn't see much in herself - just a trim body with a simple brown belly and thinly ruffled fur. She had two sparkling black eyes and a small pink snout which somehow accentuated her pointed ears. Her mother said she looked alot like a Brightwing, but Celeste constantly denied this.

From the beginning, Celeste only wanted to be two things - a broody and a normal newborn. Sadly, both of those, she could never grasp upon. Her mother, Aquila, was the head healer, and she believed in fate. Celeste also put her faith in fate. It was her fate to be nothing but a normal broody slash newborn, but oh-no, she just had to stay inside and study what did what, regurgitating (yes, _regurgitating_) pastes that soothed aching and burnt wings.

She'd much rather watch the beginning parts of a bat's life and to care for the new newborn until it's father or mother claimed it - or just goof around with her good friends than learn how to barf up medicine. But today, that would all change.

Celeste was just about to finish her set (AKA repeating medical sayings and such) of repeating 'White tips give you bloody lips' for the thousandth time when her mother barged in, with two of her assistants carrying what seemed to be an unconscious bat. The assistants laid him down on a stone slab, one of the many that encircle the rotunda that was the healer's roost. Aquila coaxed her over to the slab and asked, "Diagnose her, if you please." Her mother was already chewing on a torpid.

Celeste looked up the patient (How she loved that word; but it certainly did not describe her) up and down twice. She noticed a great deal of things - he had a broken and bleeding nose, a mangled right wing, some skull or spine damage, and he wasn't at all likely to live. She rattled off the list and looked at the large gaping ceiling of the Healer's Roost. The Roost was located all the way at the top of the sugar maple, and Scorpio, the head elder, said that the hole was there because if a poor, unfortunate soul were to die here, it would rise up to the sky. Celeste certainly did not believe this, though.

She looked around while her mother consulted with her assistants. The sights were not old, yet were they new. Celeste had spent most of her healer training out in the field. The roost was circular and vast. Around the perimeter were large chunks of stone which, serving as operating tables, many males worked to haul up here. In the middle, a larger and more rectangular chunk was centered, and on it were medicinal ingredients wrapped in leaves. Many of the flotsam and jetsam tables were not inhabited, thankfully, but during the male's retreat to Hibernaculum, it would be full of ready females - that's usually why only females work in the roost.

"What would you have us do, Miss Celeste?", an assistant asked, a peculiar specimen, with light tan fur and dull gray eyes. "Yes, tell us what you think, Celeste." Her mother was at the foot of the slab, Celeste was standing near the head, and the dull gray eyed one was near the torn wing, quietly tending to it. Despite wanting to be anything else but a healer, she loved the study of medicines, and went over her list once before repeating it. "A mix of the blue leaf, some redberry, and a dash of lemongrass for his wing, a compress of ice and something aromatic, for his head, and bit of menthol for his back issues."

As the assistant rushed out of the roost, looking for something aromatic and some menthol, Celeste and Aquila worked on the rest of him in relative quiet, rarely breaking the silence by asking to pass one thing or another.

After the assistants had came in with a pound of menthol and some mint and her mother finished making a small concoction for when he woke up, Aquila left Celeste there, beside the bat, who's apparent name was Cedric - thanks to a hunter named Archer - until he woke up. And so she did, sitting on a slab, watching the muscular, tan bat, until she fell asleep, under the soft wings of someone. She had a good idea of who she was sleeping on, and didn't resist.


	3. Suicidal Tendencies

CHAPTER 2: Suicidal Tendencies

Shade Silverwing was dead. Well, somewhat dead, actually. Even though he could not speak with the living, he could still somehow communicate with them. He had found out earlier that using his heightened sense and skill of echo-location, he could speak with the living - provided they had the patience and ears to listen.

There was no need to hunt or breathe, as he had found it quite useless, but he sometimes pretended to breathe or hunt, but with every passing day, he forgot one more skill that he would've found useful in life, but he also learned a new skill that he would find useful now. Today, Shade was heading towards Tree Haven after trying to drown himself in a river, may I say, without success. Preforming intricate loops and stunts that would've earned him a nip on the ear from Marina, he messed up on a 720 degree loop-de-loop plus a stall turn, and instead of tilting right, he flew left, and crashed right into a tree trunk - and passed right through it. It was quite unsettling, feeling the beating heart of whatever lived inside of it. He would get used to it, he would usually say. He never did.

Recovering from the minor annoyance that was crashing into a tree, he returned on his course to Tree Haven.

When he reached the large sugar maple, he flew high, and dived straight into the hole that let you see into the Healer's Roost. As he crashed into the floor which would've certainly crushed Shade (he learned how to do this yesterday - by projecting your will on something, it becomes solid to the dead), he then pried himself up and looked around. On one slab was a withered old bat he didn't recognize - well, he didn't recognize anyone at all. Since he died, three new generations of Silverwings emerged.

On another was a pair of bats, one looking Silverwing and one looking Brightwing, the Brightwing resting under the Silverwing's left wing. _Oh, how he longed to see Marina._ Quickly removing his projected will from the floor, he fell, but using his sails, he slowed to a walk. Floor by floor, he passed, until he reached the new roost for Marina - near the big nursery.

Projecting his will onto the floor, he stepped inside. The walls were a bit rough, but okay enough to leave a nice message or two. Singing the scale, he readied his throat and began speaking, but in a tone an octave lower, so the living could hear.

_ 'Hello, Marina! How are you doing? You know exactly who this is. Am fine - how about you? Tell Griff I miss him, and I love you. Still working on a cure _(He would never find a cure for being dead , but he secretly wished he could) _hope I will join you soon! Shade.'_

Smiling, he patted himself on the back for a job well done. He was about to leave when Marina walked in, a big smile plastered on her face. Her ears pricked up a bit, and he saw her lips move. Of course, Shade could hear living words just fine, but what happened next was magical.

_You still here?_ He smiled a bigger smile, and answered, _Yeah! _Marina smiled and sat down on the roost. Shade did the same. _How did you ... er ... how can you listen?_, he asked uncertainly. _You forget - I was just as good as echoing as you, but you were the one who saved the sun._ She smiled at the end of her sentence. Just as cocky and arrogant as before. Oh, how he loved her. _How's everything over there in Dead-Land?, _she asked, her face suddenly stern, but the tone of the sentence was playful. _Fine, fine. Everything in Alive-Land okay and dandy?,_ he smiled.

_Yeah. If you were here though, you'd probably save the sun again or try to save Griffin in the underworld. Same old, same old Shade. _Her voice cracked at his name.

Marina looked away, which was surprising. She shook a bit. She was actually crying. Through his short lifetime, he had never seen Marina cry. For a second, he closed his eyes - shedding a tear or two. For everything that he lost. For everything that he gained. For everything that he lost. His life, Griffin, the colony ... Marina. Endless life, the power to walk through anything, losing your memories, slowly, every day. One looked better than the other. He couldn't say which one, for dumb fear that she would hear him.

Opening his eyes, ready to project some will onto Marina so he could properly hug her, he found that she wasn't there. He heard a quiet pounding of wings, going up. Following the wingbeats, he found Marina, precariously perched at a stray branch at the top of a neighbouring fir that was the largest in the forest. _I love you, Shade - but if I can't see you in this life, I'll have to see you in the other._ And with that, she jumped.


	4. Oh, Toto!

CHAPTER 3: Oh, Toto!

Shade launched himself off of the perch. Quickly, he started forming nets in his throat, launching one after the other. Each caught her, and when she looked as if she had slowed down enough for someone to find her, she launched a large, sharp echo, and it broke through her bindings. _SHADE! _She screamed, the echoes emanating from her throat ripping the air around her. He said nothing, readying another batch of nets. Every time he fired one, Marina countered with a sharper stake. Her aim got so good that one nailed him in the chest.

Shaking her head, she tilted herself down, on a faster collision course with the ground. That didn't stop his resolve. He still spoke nets and avoided every shot she made, but she was still falling too fast!

It had been a long time; but he was actually feeling sore. "LEAVE ME BE!", she roared over the sound of rushing wind, but not in echo this time. Shade could barely hear her, but his resolve did not waver. Net, spike, net, spike. It was a deadly game of cat and jackhammer, and guess who was the jackhammer.

The ground was closer than it was now. Closing in. No. No. _NO_. Letting a drop of blood fall from his mouth, he let loose the biggest net he could. She was covered in a cocoon of silvery nets, and she was actually slowing. But he could do no more from his side. He could only pray that someone would come and save her. And guess what - someone did.

A familiar-looking male swooped in, smiling all the while. When Marina hit his back, he gave an audible grunt that travelled into the spirit world and reverberated all around the only inhabitant.

"Don't worry, I gotcha.", the male grunted. Flying downwards in a gentle spiral, and laying the almost-dead mate of a hero on the ground, Griffin Silverwing looked up and smiled. Marina was thrashing all around, and despite all of her attempts to retry her jump, his now-older son restrained her. A few minutes passed, and Shade had landed on a stray branch not far from the ground, watching the scene unfold underneath him. "NO!", she roared. Shade flinched, even though living voices were severely dampened by the thick barrier separating the dead from the alive, two things bothered him - Shade could hear it, and Marina never used that voice. Not even with him. It was heart wrenching as he forced himself to watch as two burly males came and carried her off. Shedding one tear, he slowly fell, removing his will from the lanky stick he was resting on.

Just then, for the sake of doing it (Destiny had a way with life. Mostly it was because destiny did things at random, sat on a beach chair and watched what happened next.), a small rip opened in the ground. No pulling current came from it. Just a simple hole. But, even though Shade had projected his will onto the ground, and the strong wind did not exist, like usual, he was somehow steered into the small crack. During this time, his eyes were closed. Suddenly remembering what happened the last time he closed his eyes, he wrenched them open. It took him half a wingbeat to figure out what was happening. He was _sinking_.

Before his head sunk under the grass, he yelled, and directed it in a random direction. Shade had no time to rest his vocal chords. _HELP! _Despite tilting his head all the way, so he could breathe (Breathing? Oh my!) the world's gravity eventually made him give in, and he sank - to be soon claimed by the cold world that he thought he escaped all of those years ago. The place where he had finally lost his life. The place where everything was of the silvery substance known as echo. The area where the dead roam, their heads empty of their former lives. The Underworld.


	5. Waking to a Nightmare

_CHAPTER 4: Waking to a Nightmare_

_ HELP! _a voice echoed. Cedric sat up quickly, but sent a wave of pain washing upwards towards his brain. Uneasily lying down, he took a long gander at his surroundings. Swiveling his head from left to right, he finally encountered the piercing eyes of a female.

Cedric jumped and almost fell off of his bed / operating table / makeshift dying place. He wasn't sure what to call it. "Good morning.", she said steely. _He did something to me_, Celeste thought. Cedric was thinking something entirely different. _I'm hungry._

It was first sun that Celeste woke up. Her mother told her to sleep early, wake up early, and do everything early. It wasn't a habit she was favoring, but she had to do it anyways.

When she awoke, her vision was largely obscured by semi-transparent sails. She then began to thrash wildly when she realized that she was in the grasp of the lone stranger known only as Cedric.

It felt weird yet right, but more right than weird. She resumed her previous sitting position - in case her mother walked in again. Cedric stared into her eyes, his dark globes of mystique prying and questioning, and Celeste immediately flushed. "Did you hear that?", he questioned.

"What?", she replied, keeping her voice guarded. Celeste was still blushing even when the not-so strange stranger stopped looking her straight in the eyes.

"Never mind." He tried to sit up one more time, and only then did it occur to Celeste that he shouldn't have lived at all. A broken skull, demolished right wing? If he did survive, he would've been paralyzed, but here he was, moving this way and that, and wincing if he shot in a direction too fast.

His eyes settled on Celeste and asked her, "Where am I?". She flushed once more and then forced herself to stop. "Healer's Roost.", she said indifferently. Cedric shrugged and laid down, again sending a sharp stake of pain through his body.

Celeste fought the urge to wrap her wings around him, to comfort him, and left behind the stranger. The handsome stranger who shouldn't have lived at all. The handsome bat who she suspected she was beginning to like.


	6. Dead and Tired

_CHAPTER 5: Dead and Tired_

The feeling of dirt, all around you and inside you, was maddening. Maddening enough that Shade was gurgling and screaming his throat off. But sadly, no matter how loud he yelled, no matter how much he thrashed, he would not make it to the surface through some random miracle. He had passed into stone now, and the tight compression of being squashed by millions of tons of pressure made him jerk and wrench.

Eventually, he became tired. Tired enough that he actually close his eyes. Tired enough that he actually _slept_. Oh, no, this wasn't caused by his wanton seizure. He could've went a few more hours.

The Underworld had a strange aura that made any bat exhausted within it's range, making them easier to drag into the deep abyss. That, of course, happened only on _living_ bats. The aura had a different effect on downwards-going _dead_ bats. It sapped them of their will, which prevented them from making the ground they were sinking through solid, and just like a rubber ball when under extreme tension, it would eventually shoot up. Not many dead bats have ever escaped using this skill. But then again, not much bats actually escaped. At all, actually.


	7. Terrible Ghastly Silence

_CHAPTER 6 - Terrible Ghastly Silence_

_Who_. That was the first question swimming around in my mind. It was like a blank slate. Not even a single morsel of information left. Then the feeling of knowing that you were obviously missing something was replaced with the eerie sense of deja-vu.

_Who am _I? I, in all of my entirety, had found myself, almost dead and lying, on a forest floor. No-one was around. Absolutely no-one. A sense of dread welled up inside of me. I had to take my mind off of loneliness for a bit. That's how I got here. Who.

I couldn't at all skip any steps. If I wanted to make headway in this world, I had to come up with my own name, first of all. He looked around. A large tree provided shade to two mushrooms and a single skittering spider. _Tree ... Mushroom ... Shade ..._ Shade. That was my name. It seemed right enough. Next ... What.

_What_? What am I? Well, I know for a fact that I'm a bat ... I think. I slowly raised my left sail and moved it a bit. No pain, no pain so far. I did the same with my right wing and it seemed to be fine. I was on my hind feet now, standing, quietly thinking.

_Where_? Well, that would prove to be a tiny bit tricky. Carefully, I gawked around at my surroundings. A pine tree there, a maple tree there, the forest seemed to be teeming with mixed kinds of trees. And the bugs, there were so _many_. Horned beetles, a few butterflies, and one or two tiger moths. I knew exactly what I could call this. Paradise.

_When_. Obviously in the present, of course. As my mind warmed up for the next question that would (hopefully) unlock the next secret of my identity, I heard a rustle. Then a whisper. Then silence. I shook myself. No-one else appeared to be here. So why should I worry?

Now. Back to the question at hand.

_Why_. Why was I here? Unknown reason. But a tiny glimmer of forboding wormed its way into my brain. But, just as fast as it appeared, it disappeared, pushed by some invisible force, straight into an obscure area of my mind.

I was here, of course, because of destiny. Destiny wanted it, and destiny got it. Why Destiny dropped me in the middle of Paradise, I wasn't too clear on. If it was a mistake, I might as well live it up now.

_How_. How did I get here? That was the million-dollar question. Whatever a dollar was.

I heard the whisper again and a rustle. I broke out in a cold sweat and slowly swiveled. Large trees towered to the ceiling, clouded with misty green foliage, making it easy for my ally or my assailant to find me. "Hi! Uh ... if you're here, um, can you ... show yourself?", my voice cracked.

_There was a terrible ghastly silence_. I heard the faint rustling of wings unfurling and wind being cut.

_There was a terrible ghastly noise_. It was met with the quiet sound of a body being dragged on dirt.

_There was a terrible ghastly silence_, and the forest returned to it's original state; untouched and quiet.


End file.
